"Skylark, I don't know if you can find these things, but my heart is riding on your wings.."

My saddest Christmas? Strung out in East Hollywood pretending to have the flu? That happened a couple of times. Or maybe 1997 in Long Beach, going to see "Midnight In The Garden of Good & Evil" alone after refusing to go to the Duggan Family Christmas shindig in Garden Grove. The theater was full of guys like me - misfits, loners, drunks, junkies - many of whom looked even more lost and broken than I had been at the time. As the film progressed, you could hear the audible collective disconnection and disinterest; like some immense lonely energy that permeated everything, including what was on screen. As Kevin Spacey clutches his chest and falls to the floor (seeing Jude Law's ghostly visage) and the credits roll, no one got up to leave. We sat there numb, in some kind of stupor. The house lights eventually came on, and one by one we struggled to our feet and clumsily filed out to face the sun, the shameful light of Christmas Day, and for most of us, I assume, the awful truth about our lives.

These days, the old skylark of my depression, my cohort since childhood, hangs around in the back of my head, lifting weights, waiting for the holidays to sing her loudest melancholy melody. In all the sweet and tender moments that make up my life these days, in all the numerous blessings of my beautiful family near and far, she is still there, flapping those wings, threating the sickening squawks of seasonal sadness. When she comes alive, in her festive feathered fullness, she is a formidable inertia, known to cancel out whole days and even weeks. But no matter how heavy and real the battle might be as it rages onward, I never have to look far to see that it's temporary; that time has a way of slowly taking the venom out of even the worst things, even with her song in my ears.

That skylark is singing today. I hear her trying to get my attention even as I type this. Even after years of being off any kind of junk, I recognize the seraphic sad song she sings and I try to keep the volume from overtaking the rest of the picture. And I count my blessings. I'm not dopesick. I'm not lost. I'm loved beyond all measure. 

The ghosts of trauma and the alleyways of childhood do not release us willingly, but the picture gets grainier with time. And that old skylark? She's still in the rotation, but the soundtrack gets a little warmer every year. Someday, somehow, she's going to fly away. But not today.

But it's like the Lady Chablis says: "Two tears in a bucket? Mutha-Fuck It!"

Happy Holidays to all of you, and to kids from 1 to 92. 

Warts And All.

For many of us, there is a razor thin line between powerlessness and acceptance. We cannot control other people and much of the time, we cannot control our care for them - at least I can’t. I can certainly set boundaries and walk away, but my battered heart will likely still feel some semblance of just what it was about them that set my soul afire in the first place. 

 

I’ve never been able to sublimate my love and turn it into something more powerful or otherworldly than exactly what it is. It’s a ragged, stormy, vulnerable, awkward and immediate thing and, once I’ve loved someone, I will love them always. I’ll keep my distance if I need to, but I will always hope for some level of harmony, and they will likely never leave my prayers and well-wishes. 

Something inside of me deeply resists the trend of categorizing people into subhuman tropes based on their level of relational behavior, their failures, their ugly sides. I, too, have ugly sides, and I, too, am worthy of love. 

 

It boggles my mind when I hear our fellow humans throwing around massively disparaging titles so callously and effortlessly as they discuss other humans. It just seems irresponsible and, quite frankly, juvenile and petulant. It lacks the depth of true compassion, clarity or understanding. Those with the inability to forgive will likely be cursed with the inability to deeply love and be loved. Not to mention, the outlook is deeply disempowering (s/o to my exes, most of whom will likely never see this anyway: I don’t describe you or think of you in black-and-white and I never will). 

 

We are tragically and hilariously flawed beings. We are all full of mixed motives. We are capable of great tenderness and great viciousness alike. We overestimate the sunshine and then curse at the clouds. We love the ones who hurt us and we hurt the ones who love us. We rush in, we push, we pull, we forget important things - our coat, our strength, the last step on the staircase, our keys, our goodness. It’s awkward and foolish and that’s just how it is. We rise and we falter and we get up the next day and do it all over again (to paraphrase Jackson Browne). 

 

And it's fucking beautiful, warts and all, exactly as it is. And guess what? So are You. 

 
- RPD 
Journal Entry - 3/23/19 

Nothing Special.

She snuck out after dark that night, 

Against her father’s wishes. 

She’d always been a good girl, 

Never done anything like that before. 

But he was a spoken word poet, 

A shaggy haired dream. 

A college boy 

With a quick wit, kind eyes 

And an easy way about him. 

Her stomach was full of butterflies. 

She imaged being in a poem, 

In His poem; 

Not her name, necessarily, 

but her Essence. 

And she wore 

what used to be 

Her favorite black skirt 

To their date, 

under the moonlight, 

Like in a poem. 

But Mr. Dream Poet, 

Mr. Goddamn Kind Eyes, 

He brought her Death, 

Instead of a lyrical bouquet. 

It sounds ridiculous, 

But a love song was playing, 

She remembers the melody. 

 Echoing through tinny speakers 

With the treble way too high 

And the words too strange to make much sense. 

She prayed and pleaded; 

First, with him, 

And then to a god that didn’t give a shit, 

Leaking pointless tears 

On his vice grip around her neck, 

Until he was done taking whatever he wanted. 

He drove her back, 

Saying nothing. 

She remembered that awful silence, 

Her eyes puffy and swollen, 

Barely able to catch her breath, 

Waiting for red lights to turn green. 

She kept his secret 

Through the shame 

Through the terror 

Through her friends reciting Shakespeare 

and Jokingly calling her The Muse

Through the brokenness of 

Not being able to trust anyone 

Not feeling worthy of love 

Not understanding why. 

She kept his secret, 

Playing coy and elusive, 

Smiling through the pain

as it rotted her from the inside out. 

From her friends, 

From her lovers, 

From her Father 

From Everyone. 

Because she knows 

It’s nothing special. 

To be forced 

Hurt 

Used 

Emptied into; 

And then dropped from the heavens 

To land in a dull pile 

With Monday’s trash collection 

Alongside a million other fairytales, 

just like hers: 

Broken, 

Violated, 

Discarded.. 

Without a poem, 

Without a choice, 

Without happily ever afters.

Journal Entry - 12/22/18

Stay Out Of The Comments Section If You Don't Want To Get Sick..

Although slavishly fashionable, I think the harvesting of low-hanging fruit to disparage those the societal garrisons deem unworthy is a rather silly practice. Registering one's disdain for the cultural aristocracy's approved targets and signaling this lazy self-obsession to the tribe's keepers comes with the mistaken belief of some kind of perceived decency and humility, but usually contains the kind of self-policing that would set the heart of a Stasi agent aflame. Engaging in these kinds of memetic exchanges may get you some kind of bizarre cultural clout, but it does not, however, make you more any more enlightened than the people you so righteously place yourself above.

Lift Up The Receiver, I'll Make You A Believer..

I want an old-fashioned
Cream-colored rotary phone
With a curlicue conductor coil cord
And when I lift that sweet receiver
And put it to my ear
I want to hear all those forgotten songs
From the past
With all their messy, nostalgic magic
Singing me
Back to sleep
Singing me Back
Home.

Muscle Shoals

Even in my darkest moments, when the alleyways of childhood become broken puzzle pieces and the unbroken ladder of years fades away, I can still lean on those swampy rock n' soul records. I turn it up real loud and allow myself to dissolve into the deep, warm throb of a David Hood bass line as if it were the echo of the heartbeat of something immense and benevolent.

I Ask Only This..

May you continue to deliver me from Indifference.

The Magic of Fatherhood..

Not to expose myself as a Jedi Master of Stating The Obvious, but parenting is difficult. It isn’t for everyone and I applaud those who have made powerful decisions either way. But, at least for me, being a Dad has utterly revolutionized my heart and altered my perspective, unlike anything else. Nothing else really comes close.

Perhaps the single most expansive aspect of parenthood is the way it permanently divests you of the notion that convenience can play a part in the equation of love. From the moment your child enters the world, the instinctive drive to provide and protect them becomes infinitely more powerful than the ego’s yearning for comfort and familiarity. For once, selflessness is the more natural way to behave. You hardly have a choice. Some ancient engine, from some mystic center of things, seems to both compel and propel you. It's almost impossible to put this inner transformation into words.

The path to something resembling enlightenment isn’t always found after years of self-analysis or meditation or chanting or sitting at the feet of the guru. Sometimes, and maybe for more than some of us, it is found in the brutal and irreversible rewiring of the nervous system that accompanies preserving a helpless and precious life in its infancy and slowly, lovingly, painstakingly nurturing this giggly mess into a person; a human thing with its own thoughts and hopes and dreams and passions.

Although one might compare this process to some kind of enlightenment (as I did) or spiritual revolution, I also find that parenting does not, no matter how many kudos we receive, rid us of our own selfishness and ego. Raising a child also does not necessarily make us any more morally robust than others; nor does it automatically allow us to show up selflessly in our relationships with other wounded adults. It is not a balm to heal all wounds and bring light into all our darkened interior spaces.

But it does do something as holy as anything else in this life: It forever challenges the old notions that arise from our instinct to self-preserve, in a way like nothing else can. The challenge is now felt on a visceral level. Selfishness - even of the most passive and non-malicious variety - and the shallow pursuits of pleasure and comfort, do not feel as easy or even as plausible as they once did. Now, with every unfolding moment and pending decision, there is almost always a pause and a voice that says, “but you know another way of loving now.”

Or maybe this is just my experience on a my haphazard and amazing journey from traumatic childhood to addiction to something akin to adulthood and finally into something even more magical. Maybe that's why it was so easy to never go back to those haunted and ugly places, seeking to dull the pain of stolen youth or silence the ghosts that haunt the alleyways of childhood. Being a parent gives us a sacred privilege. It is holy and profound and it feels like a blessing, yes, but also like a kind of relief. To put it simply, we are granted something more important to live for than ourselves.

If there has been any true magic in my life, this is where it began.

I hope and trust that all my Dad friends were able to reflect upon that magic yesterday. Through the ups and downs, the joys and concerns, the triumphs and challenges, it never leaves you. The Magic is always there. And I am so goddamn lucky for it.

Five Simple Rules.

Never dumb yourself down or sweeten yourself up to appease anyone or any situation.

Pay attention to what you rationalize - especially if you are defensive about it.

Be your own advocate. Don't expect anyone else to do your thinking, talking, fighting or growing For you.

Consider the most joyous outcome a real, viable possibility.

Don't demonize your bodily appetites -- but also do not assume that they have your long-term health or happiness in mind.

"Bad Electricity"

"Bushmills and a cup of coffee, black.”

These are the only words anyone in Austin ever heard me say.

I slid the shot glass a few inches to my left, in front of the empty bar stool next to me. The chairs on either side of me were always deserted, regardless of how crowded it got in that goddamn place. It would have been completely fair to call my disposition.. Unwelcoming.

The coffee was perfectly tepid, damn near approaching altogether awful, but you don’t order coffee in a Texas honky-tonk on a Tuesday night for the taste. You swallow and you grimace; and then you swallow again, if for no other reason than to make yourself feel like exactly what you were: Bad Electricity.

"Hiding In Plain Sight.."

She fell in love with someone who wanted to keep pining away in private, and he resented her for ruining that and for attempting to love him, doggedly, out of the shadows and into the light.

"If you can't be with the one you love," a friend of mine says, "love the one who looks, acts or makes you feel closest to the one you love."

Other people might call this having a type. Personally, I think it's an expression of grief for an original and vital soul loss.

We hide in plain sight, in our bodies.

New Mojo Hand, Still The Same Magic..

Because of the nature of my wrist/hand injury and the accompanying nerve pain, I've had to adjust the way I play guitar. Heavy palm muting is out. I've adopted Big Bil Broonzy-style fingerpicking, with a touch of the Carter Lick. Works fairly well.

Things fall apart sometimes, and they're still beautiful.

It's Your Show..

I know stress and worry can take a tremendous toll on some of us. Please try to relax. Take a deep breath once in a while. I know it all seems important, but we are just a sack of old ocean animals clinging to our coral bones, looking for a very complicated way to entertain ourselves.

There is no purpose we are given. Meaning and purpose must be created. So try not to become too overwhelmed by the messiness along the way. You are beautifully human. Have a little fun with it. Explore the territory. Play it for laughs. Find out who you are and then do what you dig and do it on purpose. Because this ride ends, y'all.

Mercy

The human heart is a circus. It is wild, ravenous, messy; desperate to feel, connect, validate, understand. Some of us have learned to escape this reality (or at least hide our vulnerability) better than others. But no matter how you slice it, all of us carry within us an incredible capacity for good and also the capacity to hurt the ones we love the most; the seeds of creation and destruction.

Mercy is a constant reawakening. The blame-game – meaning our fearful and reflexive use of indignation, anger and unforgiveness: that's the stuff of emotional and mental bondage. But to have perspective - to see how much we've been forgiven, to remember how much we ache to see hopefulness in the eyes of those we've wounded - that is the stuff of freedom, the terrain inhabited by the ability to find Mercy.

No matter how horrible the offense that was done against you, there is nothing more destructive than an icy heart that refuses to forgive and refuses to identify (at least on some small level) with the brokenness of the perpetrator. To see that person worthy of love, just as we ourselves are deserving of such a wonderful thing. To see that, in our own darkest moments, we’ve done things that we’re also ashamed of – and we deserve Mercy, too.